The Weeksville Heritage Center
Case Study of a Virtual Tour Production of a 20,000 sq ft Historic Facility
A Brooklyn NY Historic Landmark
Our Very First Client was The Weekville Heritage Center located in Brooklyn, New York. Weeksville, part of the present-day neighborhoods of Crown Heights and Bedford-Stuyvesant, was an independent free black community, named for James Weeks. Weeks purchased the property in 1838, along with other African American investors, in order to create an intentional landowning community. Continuing the legacy of self-determination, Weeksville's history was rediscovered in 1968 when urbanization threatened to erase the physical memory by destroying the few remaining historic homes. Instead, a grassroots preservation effort was led by James Hurley, Dewey Harley, Dolores McCullough, Patricia Johnson, and eventually artist and activist, Joan Maynard to preserve the Hunterfly Road Houses and the memory of historic Weeksville.
The Weeksville Heritage Center Has Been Around Since 1970
A View of Crown Heights
The Weeksville Heritage Center is a historic site and cultural center in Central Brooklyn on Buffalo Avenue between St. Marks Avenue and Bergen Street in Crown Heights, New York City. The Center uses education, arts, and a social justice lens to preserve, document, and inspire engagement with the history of Weeksville, one of the largest free Black communities in pre-Civil War America, and the Historic Hunterfly Road Houses.
The Process
We started by having a few meetings to discuss the history of the space and what solutions we could provide. The consultation time was incredibly important for us to gather the information we needed to execute the project. It also gave us a touch of the great folks managing the livelihood of such a historic center and learned more about what it meant to them. This learning process was incredibly useful for us as not only did we learn new things about this amazing place but it also helped us get everything we needed to document it properly.
After a few meetings, we scheduled a time for us to visit in person. Once we got a chance to understand the magnitude of the space we were able to provide a quote and proposal to the client while we navigated logistics for production time.
Museum Virtual Tour
Production took about 2 days. In between navigating the weather for our outside shots and taking time to document the artifacts in the historic homes. Production is our favorite part, this is where we get to use our equipment in the best way possible while adjusting to different lighting conditions and aiming for the best results.
Ultimately we ended up making 2 360 virtual tours. The first one was the full virtual tour allowing the viewer to navigate the facility in its entirety, and the second virtual tour was primarily for grade school children, where teachers used the tours to educate them about the history of the space.
Interior and Documentation Photography
So many historical artifacts and things to see at this facility, we also provided interior photography and documented specific areas to link within the 360 virtual tour adding more interactivity within the tour and providing a more robust tour with more to see.
Google Street View
We also added the 360 Virtual Tour to Google Street View. I’m sure you’ve used this before, you want to take a closer look, curious about how the space is, amenities, etc, so you navigate Google Street View to see for yourself.
As a public space, The Weeksville Heritage Center benefited greatly from having the 360 on Google. Since posting a portion of the 360 virtual tour the photos of the tour have garnered over 47 thousand views! People who I imagine also scheduled an in-person tour and inspired others to want to visit.
